The Crack in the Armor
by half agony and hope
Summary: "Jane looks at me, that look he gives suspects when he's trying to cold read them, and I know he's figured out that there's some other reason I turned Marcus down. In fact, by the way he's looking at me, he's figured out the reason. However, Jane doesn't push, and I am grateful. We will talk about that reason someday. Just not tonight." A variation on Black Hearts.
1. Part I

**AN: I'm currently planning out the sequel to "Til Our Souls Catch Us Up", but in the meantime, I wanted to share this little fic with you all. It takes place right at the end of "Black Hearts" as Pike is proposing to Lisbon. Hope you all enjoy it!**

 **And yes, at some point there will be a part II to this :)**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own The Mentalist.**

* * *

Part I

* * *

" _Will you marry me?"_

Even before he's finished the sentence, I feel the anxiety seep deep into my bones. It makes its way up my spine, ice-like and imposing, and my insides freeze over. I have to tell myself to take a breath.

" _What?_ " I mouth.

Marcus responds, but I cannot process his words.

All I can think about is this cold anxiety, this threatening frigidness. Some part of me realizes vaguely that I have the power to escape it.

I shake my head, and the first cracks break through the ice.

"No," I squeak out, hardly aware that I've interrupted whatever Marcus is saying.

"Sorry?" asks Marcus, putting his hands on my upper arms, his expression concerned.

" _No_ ," I say more firmly, and the cracks begin to perpetuate.

"What?"

"No," I say again, this time forcefully. And I am free, warmth spreading from my chest as I begin to unthaw. I meet his eyes and take in his look of confusion. "I can't marry you."

"Oh," he says, still looking confused. A second later he's pulled himself back together. "I'm sorry—God, I'm sorry, Teresa. I know you better than this. You need more time. Of course you need more time. And we'll have nothing but time in DC." He smiles at me and rubs one of his hands up and down my arm.

I take a step back, wondering how things have become so royally screwed. Only _I_ would realize I can't give my heart to a man the minute he proposes.

I grasp at what is left of my shattered reality and attempt to put it back together.

This is more difficult than I care to admit, and I'm immediately lost for words.

However, I force myself to speak, knowing the message will be painful no matter the words I choose to use.

"I'm staying."

Marcus' hands drop to his sides. "What? But you just said...you just said you were going to take the job offer in the morning."

I look at him helplessly. "I'm sorry," I whisper. "I can't—I just can't."

"Do you need more time?" he asks, taking a step toward me. I take another step back, uncomfortable, and I shake my head.

"That's the problem," I say. "No matter how much time you are willing to give me, I'll never be ready."

He blinks furiously as his eyes mist over, and it occurs to me that surely I am crazy for turning him down. He's a good man. Better than I deserve, probably. But if his proposal nearly immobilizes me with terror, how is it possible that he is the _right_ man?

"So this is it, then?" he says, looking dejected and defeated, and I hate myself for causing him pain. "There's nothing I can do?"

"I'm sorry," I whisper again.

He moves forward, and this time I let him. He touches his lips to my forehead. "Be well, Teresa."

I nod. "Good luck in DC," I manage, but without another glance at me he's already moving out of the bullpen to call the elevator.

As the doors close around him, I feel the walls closing in around me as well.

The next thing I'm aware of is a pair of bright, sea-green eyes staring down at me, so very different than Marcus' dark brown.

"Lisbon?"

I look up at Jane.

"Lisbon?" he asks again.

Jane doesn't ask me if I'm alright. He knows I'm not—he's heard the whole exchange from his place on the couch, where I'd forgotten he'd been sitting. I wonder vaguely why Marcus proposed in front of him. Did he know how painful that must have been for Jane to watch?

"What just happened?" I ask him weakly. I want to cry—I feel like I _should_ cry—but for some reason I'm not able to.

Instead of answering, he pulls me into his arms, and his hands come to rest on my lower back while mine lay on his chest. I grip the lapel of his suit jacket in one fist and cling to him, hoping the action will make me feel less lost.

Jane is quiet, whispering no sweeting nothings in my ear, and for this I am grateful. He just holds me silently, and when my grip tightens on his shirt, his grip tightens around my torso in response.

After a few minutes, he finally speaks. "Let's get you home, alright?"

Suddenly the thought of returning to my house, of returning to a bed that still smells like Marcus, is far from appealing. I tense against Jane.

He looks down at me, and something in my eyes causes his expression to change. He gives me a look that I can't decipher. "Want to go to the Airstream instead?"

I nod almost imperceptibly, but of course it's perceptible to him, and he leads me out of the bullpen, his hand at the small of my back.

* * *

I stand just inside the Airstream, still feeling out of sorts, like the world is spinning around me and I can only make out bits and pieces. I'm not sure how long I stand there, gripping the back of the couch so tightly I'm sure my knuckles must be bright white.

Then Jane's hands are on my own, guiding me to take a cup of tea from him. He waits until my grip is sure before moving his hands away. I feel the warmth from the teacup, and the world stops.

I look up at him.

He smiles. "No caffeine," he says, indicating to the tea. I take a sip and feel the tension leave my shoulders.

I sit down on the couch.

He sits beside me, our knees bumping slightly.

"You want to talk about it?" he asks.

I take another sip. "No," I say immediately. I sigh. "I guess," I amend more truthfully. "Did I make the right choice?" I can't stop the words from slipping out.

Jane hesitates. "I'm of two minds about that," he finally says.

"What do you mean?"

"I want you to be happy, and a part of me concedes that he could have made you happy. But the other part of me, the selfish part, is very, _very_ glad that you're going to stay here. With me."

The last two words are said with such warmth that I reach over to grab his hand. "You were the only reason I didn't immediately say yes when he asked me to go with him," I admit.

"Why didn't you say yes tonight?" he asks quietly.

There are two obvious reasons I can think of, one far more terrifying than the other. I choose to tell Jane about the safer option. "Marcus knew me," I say. "He knows that I have a difficult time with relationships, with opening up to people. And yet, mere weeks after we started dating, he asked me to move across the country with him—to _marry_ him. Because of that, I'm beginning to wonder…did he ever really know me at all?"

Jane leans back against the couch, exhaling deeply. "I'm not sure," he says. "But to be honest, Lisbon, you're a lot like me—and I'm rather difficult to get to know."

I glance over at him. "We both have good reason for that," I say. We both build walls and defenses around any part of us that is breakable. As long as I've known Jane, I don't think I've let anyone inside those walls…except, perhaps, for Jane himself.

An idea occurs to me.

"How would you have done it?"

Jane's brow furrows. "Done what?"

"Proposed to me." I hasten to explain. "You're the one who knows me best," I say. "Seems like if I was ever going to say yes to marriage, you would know how to ask."

To my surprise, his response comes immediately, without thinking.

"You hate attention," says Jane, "so any sort of public proposal is out of the question—no restaurants, no sporting events. You wouldn't want anyone watching." He turns toward me, lifting an arm to put over the back of the couch behind me. "You also like to keep your personal life separate from work, so I would have avoided the bullpen. Rookie mistake," he says with a smile, clearly thinking of Marcus, and I can't help but chuckle.

God, it feels so good to be able to laugh about this with Jane. It no longer feels like my world is ending.

Jane continues. "You like stability, so I would have waited until we'd been in a relationship for several months—and even then, I would have waited until we'd found a place of our own. A home. That's where I would have proposed to you."

"At home?" I ask, surprised. It's not where I would have picked, but somehow…somehow it feels right.

"Don't get me wrong, Lisbon, I would still go the whole nine yards—you'd be weak in the knees. Because let's face it, you're a closet romantic—you secretly want to be romanced."

I smile. "And you're a hopeless romantic," I tease.

"That obvious, huh?"

"Yeah."

Jane looks at me, that look he gives suspects when he's trying to cold read them, and I know he's figured out that there's some other reason I turned Marcus down. In fact, by the way he's looking at me, he's figured out _the_ reason. However, Jane doesn't push, and I am grateful.

We will talk about that reason someday.

Just not tonight.

I give him another smile and down the rest of my tea. He takes the cup and saucer and deposits them in the sink to be washed later, and I try to hide a yawn.

"You want to crash here for the night?" he asks, leaning against the sink.

I nod, and Jane reaches over me to dig through one of the overhead storage bins. He hands me a couple blankets, a pair of sweatpants, and a t-shirt.

I look at him curiously. He rolls his eyes. "Yes, Lisbon, I do own clothing other than suits." As if to prove his point, he grabs a pair of blue pajamas from the bin as well. "See?"

I grin.

He gestures to his right. "You take the bathroom first," he says.

I slip past him into the bathroom and close the door. As I pull on the baggy sweatpants and t-shirt, I inhale a scent that is uniquely Jane. Though I can't recall seeing Jane wear something other than his suits, he must have worn these clothes recently in order for them to still smell like him. For some reason, the thought of casual Jane makes my world spin again.

A few minutes later, I am curled up on the couch across from the sink, and Jane, clad in his blue pajamas, exits the bathroom and sits down on the couch near the driver's seat, turning off the lights on his way over.

He rustles for a while before settling in. Then the silence becomes too much.

"Lisbon?" Jane says suddenly, and I latch onto his voice like it's a lifeline.

"Yeah?"

There's a pause.

"You okay?"

The terrifying reason I turned Marcus down no longer seems so terrifying.

I smile and pull the blanket further up over my shoulders.

"I will be," I say.

And suddenly, I am.


	2. Part II

**AN: Thanks for all the lovely comments on part I! I'm so glad you all seemed to enjoy it. Without further ado, here's the second and final part.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own The Mentalist.**

* * *

Part II

* * *

Three weeks pass.

Nothing has changed, and yet everything has. It's a conundrum that I can't quite solve, but I think it has something to do with Jane.

Or everything to do with him.

He invites himself over to my house one Sunday morning. I open the door and stare at him blankly.

"Do we have a case?" I ask, blinking blearily. I realize vaguely that I'm still in my nightwear, and I tug at my hockey jersey, attempting to cover up more of my thighs.

Jane returns my blank stare, and then a second later he shakes his head as though clearing it. It doesn't occur to me until later that his eyes had been drawn to the skin I was trying to cover up.

"Uh, no," says Jane in response to my question, and he hands me a cup of coffee.

I nod at him. "Thanks," I say, taking a sip. Some semblance of normal functioning begins to return to me. "Why are you here, then?"

He has a difficult time meeting my eyes when he responds. "I, uh…just wanted to see you, I guess," he says, shrugging.

Another sip of coffee, and I remember that social convention dictates I invite him inside. "Come on," I say, and he follows me down the hall after closing the door behind him.

"What are you up to today?" he asks.

"Whatever you'll be up to, I expect," I tell him over my shoulder as I head to my room to get changed. I hear him chuckle behind me.

When I return two minutes later wearing a pair of black yoga pants and a tank top, Jane is standing in my living room, examining the boxes which line my walls.

He gives me a reproachful look. "Lisbon," he says, gesturing to everything which I've yet to unpack after the move from Cannon River. "You've been here for months. It's time to, you know, _be_ here."

I'm about to brush him off, to tell him that most of my stuff never got unpacked even in Sacramento, but the sincerity of his tone reverberates in the room and I realize how much I want what he's talking about. I want a home. I want to stay somewhere for a while. Or better yet, permanently.

Our eyes meet, and he must see something in mine because a second later he shrugs out of his suit jacket and rolls up his shirtsleeves. "Alright, it's settled," he says. "I know what we're doing today."

And without another word, he grabs the nearest cardboard box and rips the tape from it.

* * *

Two hours later, we're sitting on the ground, our backs against the only section of wall which we've managed to clear of boxes. Jane has just discovered the photo album my mother put together of my elementary school years.

I am encouraged by the lack of embarrassing pictures I've seen so far, so I allow him to continue flipping through it. The smile that's spread across his face as he glances at the photos makes it easy to share this bit of my past with him.

Suddenly, he becomes more somber. "Is that her?"

I tear my gaze from his lips.

I nod, looking at the photo album. "Yeah," I say. "That's my mom."

"She's gorgeous," says Jane, and I have to agree. My mother was a raven-haired beauty whose smile was nearly as radiant as Jane's. I look at the picture more closely, taking in the way she's looking down at me with a soft smile, her hand around my own. I remember the day that picture was taken. My first day of school. She requested off work so she could walk me there herself.

"Yeah," I say. "I'll tell you all about her sometime."

He looks at me. "How about right now?" When my eyes mist over, he puts his hand on my knee. "I've got nothing else to do today, and I've always wanted to get to know her."

I stare at him for a few seconds before I steel myself to answer. "She was a dancer all throughout high school. And she was fantastic—I remember hearing my grandparents talk about going to her performances."

"What happened?" asks Jane, and he's already noted the slight tinge of sorrow in my voice.

"Her senior year, she was accepted to Julliard. But she injured her knee practicing en pointe one day and never healed quite right." I take a deep breath. "She even had multiple surgeries to try to fix it. She told me once that was the worst point of her life—she said she got so depressed that she built up walls around herself, protected herself with armor. She refused to let anyone in."

"And then?"

I run a hand through my hair distractedly. "And then," I say, "she got to know one of the nurses when she was recovering from a surgery. She said that nurse changed her life. She was no longer depressed, and she knew what she was supposed to be doing. She wanted to help people, like her nurses had helped her." I try to smile at him. "She always told me that nursing was her calling, and her talent for dancing helped her find it."

I look away again. "About a month before she died, she told me that nursing was the crack in her armor—it helped remind her to open herself up to life, to love, to laughter." I take another shaky breath. "She said one day I'd find a reason to put up walls around myself. And the last thing I distinctly remember her telling me was that I'd also find something to break them down."

Jane shifts so that our shoulders touch. "She sounds incredible."

"She was," I whisper, and I turn the page of the photo album.

* * *

When he opens up the next box, Jane shoots me a curious look. "Lisbon," he says. "What is this?"

I look over from my place across the room, where I'm in the middle of moving my books from a cardboard box to a shelf. "Hmm?" I ask absentmindedly.

"Lisbon," Jane says again, this time with more emphasis, holding up a shoebox which he's already opened. The shoebox is filled with envelopes.

 _Oh._

There's a beat where I think of what to say.

"Actually," I finally get out, "those are yours."

Jane just looks at me. I can't remember the last time he wore such an expression of confusion.

I sigh. "When you were in South America," I say, walking over to him, "you wrote to me. And I…well, I wrote back."

I grab one of the letters and hold it out for him to see. Like all the others, it has one word written on the envelope.

 _Jane._

"You wrote letters to me?" he asks, floored. "And you kept them all? Why?" He answers his question before I've even begun to think it through. "You knew you were going to see me again."

I look up at him, and I'm keenly aware all of the sudden that my hand has come to rest on the bare skin of his forearm.

"I hoped I would."

Something catches his eye, and he leans over to pick up another shoebox. This one, I know, contains every letter _he_ sent _me_.

When he realizes this as well, he sets both shoeboxes down on the couch behind him and gathers me into his arms.

As I stand there in his embrace, my thoughts return to my mother's words.

 _She was right_ , I think.

The day she died, I put up my armor.

I never could have predicted that Jane would waltz into my life and be the one to crack it.

* * *

Jane leaves shortly after dinner that night.

About an hour later, just as I'm getting ready for bed, he's at my door again.

Feeling a sense of déjà vu, I tug at my hockey jersey and rub at my arms as the chilly night air rushes past him.

When I look at him, I know he's read my letters.

"I want the same thing, you know," he says suddenly, earnestly. "To stay somewhere permanently. To make a home. To be _here_."

I think back to our conversation this morning, and I wonder how he's managed to read my thoughts.

He takes a step forward. "But more importantly," he says, "I want to be here with _you_."

Coherent thought becomes nearly impossible.

But Jane waits expectantly, rocking back and forth on his heels. I meet his gaze and see the inner peace I've found reflected in his eyes.

I grab his hand, interlocking our fingers.

"I want that, too," I say, and the last of the armor falls.


End file.
